Hills rises from administration under Stellar Vision ownership

Health tech company Hills has exited administration, and is since October 31 this year owned by the company that took out, and won, a long court case against, Sydney's Stellar Vision.

In June this year, Hall Chadwick administrators Sule Arnautovic and John Vouris were appointed by lenders AMAL for the ten ASX-listed Hills, originally for a period of six weeks.

A long-standing contractual dispute came to an end in June, with the federal Court of Appeal awarding Stellar Vision $8.2 million including costs.

Now, the company, founded by the inventor of the iconic Hills Hoist clothesline, Lance Hill in 1945, is owned by Stellar Vision as an affiliate.

Stellar Vision's chief executive Brendan McCarthy is now in charge of Hills, which is no longer ASX listed.

He will be the chief executive of Hills as well as Stellar Vision.

"A decade ago, I could never have imagined that bringing a legal case would end in us owning Hills but here we are and we are determined to leverage Hills' significant footprint in hospitals and aged care to return the company to its once formidable status,"  McCarthy said.

As its new owners, Stellar Vision plans for hills to accelerate the development of core products, including nuser calls systems.

Currently, Hills is implementing its flagship Nurse Call "smart room" technology in the $1.5 billion New Footscray Hospital in Victoria.

That system will provide real-time messaging for patients to call for assistance, reporting tools that log activity to track workflow and performance data, and bed management capabilities to signal which rooms require cleaning, and are available for new patients.

A smart touch screen terminal will also be integrated in each patient room.

The Stellar Vision Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) system will also be added to Hills, strengthen its position in patient engagement.

"There is immense scope for the Hills product portfolio to be developed and expanded to include the most state-of-the-art and emerging technologies," McCarthy added.

"Stellar's software development capabilities will see Hills' customers provided with a significant upgrade path and productivity improvements for their existing systems," McCarthy said.

Stellar Vision said Hills technologies are currently used in more than 200 hospitals and 300 aged care facilities in Australian and New Zealand, and that the company will continue to service all existing contracts.